Files may be classified by one or more applications to provide metadata related to one or more attributes such as, for example, an owner of a file, a group associated with a file, a location associated with a file, content of a file, or other file attributes. File classification information may or may not be stored in the file itself. For example, file classification data for a particular file may be stored as metadata or tags in the particular file or file classification data may be stored in cloud-based storage, database storage, a file system Alternate Data Stream (ADS), or other external storage. File classification information may be useful for backup, archive, and other purposes. However, when a file is attached to an email, file classification information may be lost. For example, an archive management application may not have access to file classification information for an email attachment when the file classification information is stored in cloud-based storage, database storage, a file system Alternate Data Stream (ADS), or other external storage, because such external file classification information may not be included in the email or the attachment. Furthermore, even when file classification information for an email attachment is stored in the email attachment itself, access to the file classification information may be lost. For example, different applications may store file classification information in different formats and/or different locations within a file, so an application attempting to access file classification information may not know how to access it.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there may be significant problems and shortcomings associated with current file classification information retention technologies.